Case description
Three full days of training on Student-Centered Pedagogy and modelling these methods through Co-Teaching.
West-Central Indiana and South Putnam Middle and High School February 2019
This training is a great example of collaborative creativity that resulted in an impactful and inspiring experience for all the parties involved.
Day 1
Training at West Central Indiana Educational Service Center
Day 2
Training at South Putnam High School
Day 3
Co-teaching With Teachers and Community Event
Day 1
Training at West Central Indiana Educational Service Center
Finnish National Core Curriculum in Action
In this interactive workshop the participants learned about the key elements of the Finnish National Core Curriculum. We explored ways of implementing some of these elements into local pedagogical practices to make teaching and learning more engaging for the students.
Project Based Learning – Gateway to 21St Century Pedagogy
Take any education system around the globe and Project Based Learning will be a hot topic of discussion. Wise and well-designed implementation of PBL can yield learning experiences where skill and content objectives for teaching and learning are nicely combined into meaningful and authentic learning experiences for our students. In this workshop we explored the key elements of Phenomenon Based Learning, i.e. PBL with a Finnish twist. Again the main focus was on how to implement these strategies into local pedagogical practices.
Day 2
Training at South Putnam High School
Co-Teaching
The day involved a bit of coordination and planning beforehand. For example finding teachers who were willing to co-plan a lesson with Petteri and welcome him as a co-teacher to one of their lessons. The idea was to incorporate student- centered strategies into the lesson plans to see how they work in practice.
Community Event
In the evening the school hosted a community event showcasing and celebrating projects that the students had been working on for the past two months. The night ended with keynote address by Petteri.
Day 3
Co-Teaching With Teachers and Community Event
Q & A Session with Students
In this session students were given an oppotunity to ask questions about Finland and Finnish school life. At South Putnam questions were about for instance length of a school day, school lunch, amount of recess and pedagogical practices. Petteri also talked about empowering students in challenging their teachers to create engaging and student-centered learning experiences for them.
Two Training Sessions for Teachers
All the teachers were split into two groups while students had a “fun and games” theme day without regular lessons allowing every teacher to attend a training sessions. The central task for this session was to think critically about who should be doing the talking in the classroom. The participants walked away with six different strategies for organizing classroom conversation in students driven structures. These strategies enhance teaching and learning of communication and collaboration skills as well as the content on hand.
”Hands down one of the best professional development activities that I have ever been a part of. Petteri was able to connect with our students, faculty, and community members and it is totally scalable for any district wanting to give it a try. Priceless when he told a packed house that they should trust educators.”
– Mr. Michael Schimpf
Principal
South Putnam Middle and High School
”As an administrator, I was very impressed with everything that Petteri offered our school. As an educator himself, he earned the trust of our teachers and presented very hands-on and applicable content to challenge our staff to push towards more student-centered practices in the classroom and in our curriculum. He even modeled these practices to our staff by planning and co-teaching with them in their classrooms. The most impressive aspect of his visit has been the lasting impact. I have seen the teachers he worked with continue to implement the changes he modeled in how they approach students, the layout of their classrooms, and in the content they are presenting. I highly recommend Petteri. Schools will be very pleased with his level of expertise, humility in presentation, and his passion for critical thinking and student centered pedagogy.”
– Mr. Brady Rhodes
Dean of Students
South Putnam Middle and High School
